Freedom
by DarkPoisonousLove
Summary: All their lives Regina and Gold had been prisoners of restrictions imposed on them by others or by themselves. Then they met each other. Written for Golden Queen Week 2019 Day 5 - Modern AU.


**A/N: ****This was supposed to be a Ballet AU but the story shifted. The ballet's still in there. It's just not the main focus.**

**Also, this is late because I'm having computer trouble and wasn't in the right mind to write.**

**Reviews are greatly appreciated.**

He was peeking through a magnifying glass, trying to put back together a glass apple that he'd broken earlier that week. He couldn't remember ever damaging his merchandise before. But he'd never had a moaning Regina under him in his shop before.

She'd come by right after her dance lesson – tango, she'd said that time. The energy had been pulsing and bursting from her, making her the most alive and alluring thing in his pawnshop full of antiquities. It had been intoxicating and he hadn't been able to resist. He'd had to have her.

He'd kissed her sloppily and pulled at her clothes with shaky hands, turning into a fumbling mess in his own shop – the domain of precision. It should've been devastating. It had been glorious.

And the apple shattering against the floor had sounded like the breaking of shackles.

He looked at the glass apple that was coming together under his nimble fingers. It would be whole again in no time, but even with all the precision in the world he wouldn't be able to make it look like before. The cracks were still there – delicate but unmistakable once you noticed them, sullying the beauty of the apple. It would be a problem if he were keeping it for its beauty. But for him it was a token of how futile precision was. A token of his waking up.

Precision had always been his element and it was one of the few things he valued and respected. It was what he looked for in people but, unfortunately, very few possessed it. And never to a degree that could satisfy him.

The one place he knew he could always find it was ballet. Where every movement was elegant and practiced until it became perfect, until it became second nature. It was where he'd laid eyes on Regina for the first time.

She'd danced with such exactitude. Her movements had been perfect, everything so calculated it could cut you with its sharpness and precision. Or maybe it had been the emptiness spilling from her eyes that had cut off his air. She'd been so hollow that he'd been certain he was staring at the void of death itself. Her performance had been so devoid of life that it'd been painful to watch. It had wounded his heart so deeply he'd had no idea if he'd ever recover. But he'd had to try for he didn't want to die.

He'd approached her with the need for her to fix it. He'd asked her out in hopes she'd lift her curse over him. He'd learned her story and had only sank deeper into it, feeling the life draining out of him with every next horror of her mother – Cora, who had no heart and wished to rip out her daughter's, too. On her command Regina hurt herself with everyday practice and died on stage during every spectacle. No wonder she looked like a doll pulled by strings when she was forced to perform.

Then he'd seen her dance. Not ballet. Dancing. Wild, unhinged movements that carried so much energy, so much life that had been buried inside her. It had been scary. It had been powerful. It had been beautiful. It had made his heart sing in her hands. For she'd ripped it out and owned it now, but it had never been safer.

She'd frozen when she'd seen him, looking embarrassed that he'd caught her like that. That he'd caught her alive. She'd been surprised when he'd admitted his awe, with relief spilling from her eyes in the form of tears.

It had been a start. But he'd known he'd need a lot more to break the curse that was preventing her from being who she truly was inside and knowing her true self.

The bell at the entrance announced her arrival, followed by the loud bang of the door when it slipped from her hands in her haste and slammed shut.

He looked at her to see her with a messy hairdo and a wide smile on her face after her latest dance lesson. And he wished he could go with her and be her partner in dancing too, but he could barely make a step without his cane that reared its ugly golden head above the counter, reminding him of his disability in the quiet shop that was unfamiliar with music.

Her heels clicked against the floor, banishing the silence from his shop. She threw her purse on the counter, and it knocked down his tools as she kissed him under the accompanying sound of their downfall.

It had turned out that the precision he'd seen on that stage wasn't her. But he didn't care about precision anymore. He wanted her wild and powerful. He wanted to be the only one who could tame her. So he offered her the freedom to be herself. The freedom to be his.


End file.
